’24: Legacy’ Casts ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Star In Lead Role

24 is making a comeback without Jack Bauer in the newly announced 24: Legacy.Deadline reports that Corey Hawkins, star of the recent movie Straight Outta Compton, is set to take over the main role of the series.

The character was originally conceived to be African-American, and talks with this particular actor have been going on for quite some time. The original star of 24, Kiefer Sutherland, is not engaged in the project at this time.

The new main character’s name will be Eric Carter, and will have somewhat of a troubled past.

Fox’s official synopsis goes into more detail, saying Eric Carter turned his life around in the Army Rangers by becoming a military hero. He settled with his wife, Nicole, soon after but his past comes back to haunt him and he’s pulled back into action. He eventually asks CTU for help in saving his life and stopping a potential large-scale attack on America.

Coming Soon reports that the shows format will remain the same with each episode equaling one hour of time. Stephen Hopkins, who directed the original 24 pilots is set to come back and direct the new batch of episodes.

Accompanying Corey Hawkins in the new show will be a strong female lead who has yet to be announced. Overall, the 24 creators are going for a much more diverse cast of characters, which is a fresh breakaway from the norm. Fans might be a little bummed that Jack Bauer isn’t coming back, but the show is set to get a fresh batch of young fans thanks to the casting of a younger actor in the main character role.

Kiefer Sutherland mentioned back in 2014 that he didn’t want to come back to the series. After the somewhat success of 24: Live Another Day, Kiefer said, “Me, I don’t see going back to it. We had set out to do 12 episodes to end the show and deal with some of the past history of the show. It was also an irresistible opportunity to go shoot in England. So for all of those reasons it made sense to do that last season.”

In June of last year, Kiefer Sutherland expanded his thoughts on the character, saying, “I’m not coming back to do 24 because there are other things I want to do. And when they said limited-series run, I meant it. But I’ve always felt, from Season 1 on, that 24 is such a great idea that this can go on forever.”

Clearly Kiefer’s thoughts about the idea for the show were correct, as they are in fact making moves to bring back a series with brand new characters.

“I think if you create a new cast or other characters in the telling of this story, it will bring a freshness. And let’s face it there’s only so many bad days one can have before the show becomes a mad comic. And what I don’t want it to be is a mad comic…it doesn’t rule out to one having a cameo.”

Maybe the studio is secretly planning to bring back Jack Bauer in a cameo role, but only time will tell. For now, we get to see a new cast of stars in the upcoming 24: Legacy, and maybe fans should keep their eyes peeled for any signs of Jack making a surprise comeback.